ABSTRACT
ON JANUARY 22, 1921, Prime Minister Hara, Foreign Minister Uchida, and Finance Minister Takahashi addressed the House of Representatives on their respective fields.1 Immediately following the usual addresses at the beginning of the Forty-fourth session of the Diet, Representative Yuko Hamaguchi, a leading member of the Kenseikai (opposition) party, put a long question to the Hara government upon the reported negotiations then in progress between Washington and London for a naval conference, and requested the prime minister to state the attitude of the Japanese government upon the subject.2 He prefaced his interpellation by calling the attention of the House to the fact that, according to the budget for the fiscal year of 1921, of the total sum of 1,560,000,000 yen, 760,000,000 yen, namely, 48 per cent of the total budget, constituted the navy and war expenditures, being 10,000,000 yen more than the total amount raised through taxes. He then demanded specific replies upon (1) the exact extent to which the question had progressed in the United States and Great Britain; (2) the views of the prime minister concerning the probability of diplomatic realization of such a conference; (3) the views of the premier upon the armament limitation question, and (4) whether the press interview reported to have been given by Ambassador Hayashi in London the previous day had the full approval of the home government.
